


Five Halloweens in September

by mistresscurvy



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: 5 Things, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-28
Updated: 2011-10-28
Packaged: 2017-10-25 01:05:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/269995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistresscurvy/pseuds/mistresscurvy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five ways the Halloween costumes at the Houston Honda Civic Tour concert might have happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Halloweens in September

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to LittleMousling and amazonziti for looking this over. ♥

_Five_

Frank stands in front of the baby costumes, entranced by the sheer number of options available to him. He and Jamia are still figuring out the theme for this year, and he's not about to make any sort of unilateral decision without her. However, he's starting to wonder just how many extra costumes he can get away with buying for the girls. After all, there's the day itself, plus the Sunday and Saturday before, and also their Voodoo performance on Friday night to consider.

New Orleans knows how to do Halloween. Frank can't let his babies get upstaged.

He figures there must be some sort of Halloween party the weekend before Voodoo out in L.A. too. They know a lot of people out there, and a bunch of them have kids by now. So that's five--

"Try not to buy the whole section, okay?" Gerard interrupts his focus for a moment, but Frank snaps back in.

"Do you think part of the reason some people just keeping having kids is for the costumes?" Frank asks, looking over the glow worms. Cherry would look _adorable_ in that.

"Probably, but I don’t know how ethical that is." Gerard picks up the baby ninja costume and shakes it at Frank, who adds it to the pile over his arm.

"Fuck the ethics, I just need to figure how to get Jamia on board. I need a _plan._ "

Gerard snorts and scuffs the toe of his boot across the floor. "Yeah, you let me know how that goes, okay."

"Eight dogs, remember?" Frank is a master of persuasion.

"Yeah, but dogs don’t need college funds," Gerard points out.

Frank nudges him with his shoulder. "You don’t know that! Sweetpea is totally taking night classes. Beauty school." Frank laughs at his own joke, a little perplexed at Gerard's lack of response. "What’s the matter?"

Gerard waves his arms around, gesturing to the rows of costumes. "I don’t know what I want to be! There are too many options, I don’t work well in situations when I’m overwhelmed with choices. I just. I need to have a game plan for this sort of thing."

Frank looks closely at Gerard’s face. He’s near the breaking point, the stage when Gerard needs to leave the mall or store for half an hour and have seven cigarettes and breathe in air that hasn't been recirculated a billion times before he can focus on finding the perfect new jacket to join its seventy billion brothers and sisters. Normally Frank would be fine with Gerard taking a breather, but they just don't have that kind of time today. This is a tight mission.

He thrusts the pile of baby costumes into Gerard's arms. "Okay, you stay here and guard my stash. I'm gonna go find you the perfect thing. Be back in five minutes."

Frank turns around before Gerard can respond, determined to find the right ensemble for Gerard. He shops for costumes by feel, just letting the store guide him, knowing that when he finds the right one it'll hit him over the head.

And just like always, it does. He does a fistpump of triumph and grabs a men's small and medium off the rack (the fit on these things is notoriously imprecise) and weaves his way back through the aisles to find Gerard holding a baby flower costume with a bumblebee on one of the petals.

"Man, I wish Bandit was still small enough to wear this," he says, putting it back on the rack with a wistful sigh.

Frank shakes his head. "I'm telling you, the only way to avoid this heartache is to just keep having babies. Also you're done, I'm a genius." He eyeballs Gerard’s torso and looks back at the two packages before tossing the medium at Gerard. He barely manages to catch it and not drop the other costumes he's holding, but somehow he manages. Frank divests him of the haul for the twins and starts to count. Seven; he can probably get away with buying one more, but that's it.

Gerard holds out the knight's costume, looking it over. "Frank! A knight? Me?" He looks over at Frank, eyes wide.

Frank smirks back at him. "I may not be the Queen of England, but it's the best I can do. Just don't expect me to call you Sir Gerard."

 _Four_

Normally the fact that Gerard's brain never stops working is a good thing. It’s something that other people even appreciate. It means that he can be in the middle of five or six conversations with people at once, picking up threads that were dropped a couple of days ago with ease. Usually his friends and family are happy to just jump back in.

This is not one of those times.

"Uhhhhhhh," Frank moans, hips moving in time with Gerard's thrusts. He swallows, Adam's apple bobbing, and braces his hands more firmly against the headboard as he pushes down to meet Gerard’s hips, the muscles of his arms thrown into high relief. Gerard can't figure out where to look or what he wants to touch more. He settles for licking up Frank's left arm and then pressing close against his neck, nipping right under Frank's ear before he tries again.

"So why _did_ you wear that Dracula's cape in Charlotte?" Gerard leans a little to the left and reaches down with his right arm to get his elbow under Frank's knee, pushing his leg up against his chest before thrusting back inside.

"Oh god yeah," Frank says, tipping his head back for a moment before looking up at Gerard. "Why do you want to talk about this now?" he asks, voice trailing off on the last word as Gerard slows the pace and grinds up against him.

Gerard shrugs as best he can and kisses across Frank’s cheek. "Just curious. You didn't even give me a chance to get a costume of my own."

Frank's body clamps down around him and his dick twitches up against Gerard's belly.

Gerard stops moving and stares down at him. "Seriously?"

Frank says, "Nrgh," and takes his hands off the headboard and grabs Gerard's ass in an attempt to get him moving again, but Gerard will not be dissuaded.

"What do you want me to wear?" he whispers into Frank's ear.

"Gerard, I swear to god if you don't start fucking me again _right now_ \--"

Gerard twitches his hips forward a little and Frank groans. "Tell me and I'll fuck you, Frank. Fair's fair."

"Nothing about this is fair, you asshole, but fine. I don't care what you wear, you could be a pirate-- _oh_ \--or a zombie-- _fuck_ \--or, or a dolphin, I don't care, Gee, just, _yes._ "

Gerard hitches up a little onto his knees, getting a hand on Frank's cock. It's smooth and hot and leaking all over the place, and Gerard knows he's close. "What about an elven warrior?"

"Sure, sounds good, oh fuck," Frank says, hands gripping Gerard's arms hard.

"I'm totally Chaotic Good," Gerard says, noting how Frank's cock twitches in his hand at the words. "See, I knew that would get you going."

"D&D's your kink, not mine," Frank pants out, rocking his hips forward every time Gerard fucks into him.

"Your secret's safe with me, baby." Frank growls and pulls himself enough to bite down on Gerard's shoulder. Gerard gasps and starts fucking him harder, hand on Frank's dick matching the pace.

"We should get the other guys to dress up too, why not," Gerard says, and Frank keens, groaning through his teeth as he comes.

Jesus Christ that feeling will never get old. Gerard manages three or four final thrusts before he follows Frank over, pulsing inside Frank's ass even as the aftershocks still work through Frank's body. He collapses against Frank's chest and pants into his neck, Frank's hands running over his sweaty back.

He pulls back a little once he's caught his breath and kisses Frank softly, sucking on his lower lip before pulling away. "So you _really_ like the idea of the band in Halloween costumes, huh."

Frank thwaps him in the arm. "Your fucking dick was in my ass, okay, what you were saying had nothing to do with it."

"Sure, sure," Gerard says, licking up Frank's jawline. "We'll go shopping tomorrow."

 _Three_

Ray Toro has spent a lot of the last ten years in costumes of one kind or another.

He's never really minded--once Gerard gets done explaining his vision over a pot or seven of coffee, he's totally on board, and if he's honest about it he's usually sold within the first five minutes.

Gerard has a way of explaining ideas that makes them feel like truths he's always known but somehow had forgotten.

But overall, Ray is a jeans-and-t-shirt kind of guy. He likes being comfortable, likes being able to just wear street clothes up on stage to play and then wear them off stage again. It works for him.

Which is why he's not entirely sure what makes him pick up Frank's Dracula cape a couple of days after the Charlotte show. Frank had draped it over one of the chairs in the lounge, like a reminder to all those who enter that while they may look like mild-mannered men, this was the realm of the undead. He feels the material slip through his hands, imagines how the guys would react if he was the guitarist in a cape this time rather than Frank.

He's pretty sure they would respond the same way they did to Frank's announcement that he wanted to wear something a little different--a chorus of okays and general acceptance. But he still thinks about it even as he folds the cape over the back of the chair again, patting it a little absent-mindedly.

They're driving through Louisiana two days later when he finally says something, interrupting a spirited discussion of Frank's top ten concerts of all time.

"Hey guys," he says, unexpectedly nervous.

"Hey what," Frank responds, shifting gears from the story of the first time he saw the Bouncing Souls in Jersey to Ray in an instant.

"I was just thinking that tomorrow night maybe I would wear the Dracula cape. You know, make it sort of a thing for our fans," he says, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Like a callback," Gerard says, his face brightening. "Or a commentary?"

Ray shrugs. He hadn't really gotten that far in his idea.

"You want to be up there in a cape by yourself, or should we come up with stuff too?" Mikey asks. There's a pause before he continues. "Because I could totally go for getting a Jason mask, I fucking love those things."

"If Mikey's in, I am," Frank says, falling back onto the couch.

"Are you okay with all of us wearing stuff, too?" Gerard asks. "You don't want to have your moment?"

Ray shakes his head. "Nah, it'll be more fun if you all get involved. Like Christmas in July or something." Gerard nods, looking satisfied.

Ray always knows his band's got his back.

 _Two_

"Frank, no," Mikey is saying.

"Come on," Frank complains. "It would be _funny._ "

"It would be dumb, Frank. If you want to wear the Black Parade costumes again so badly, I'm sure Lindsey could pull them out of the back of Gerard's closet and ship them to us."

"But that is not the point, the point is that we could be wearing costumes of ourselves onstage. How is that not awesome?"

Gerard can hear the swish of Mikey's hair as he shakes his head. "I am not sweating to death in that shit again, okay."

"Oh, but a mask is fine."

"That's different, you know I like having my arms breathing free now," Mikey continues as Frank follows him down yet another aisle in the largest Spirit of Halloween store Gerard has ever been in. Their argument fades into the background of his awareness as he stands at the divide between the Men's costumes and the Women's costumes.

It's the first time he's ever really looked at the difference in choices between the two, the fact that the men's side has actual costumes, characters to play, and the women's side is essentially a mess of sexy versions of various occupations. As if the idea of a woman being a police officer, or a firefighter in short shorts and suspenders and little else, is just as much an outfit a woman would put on rather than something she could be.

Lindsey's never brought home anything like this, but then her Halloween costumes tend to be concocted out of her actual clothes and supplies and put together on the fly. And luckily Bandit's not old enough yet to be getting the full exposure of anything worse than a pretty pretty princess and so forth.

But he can see the progression, can see what options are going to be presented to Bandit and to Frank's girls, the way they'll be corralled into a certain way of being, into a prescribed role, no matter how weird their parents are. They can punk rock it up as much as they want, but if the next ten years go as fast as the last decade did, pretty soon Bandit will be getting her cues from much greater forces than just her parents and uncles and the rest of their family.

He can still control it now, though.

Gerard takes one of the sexy nurses outfits off the peg, and tries to figure out if it'll read as a statement of rejection or just that he's mocking women. He puts it back after realizing that it'll impede his high kicks way too much. Plus he really prefers it when Ray is actually willing to look at him, his fondness for short-shorts notwithstanding. He continues walking down the aisle, rejecting one low-cut unitard after another, none of them right, none of them having the right vibe.

And then he realizes his mistake, and turns to walk back to the men's section when Frank reappears out of nowhere at his left elbow. "Gerard, I thought we were past the Elvira phase."

"That wasn't a phase," Gerard says absently, looking over his shoulder at one of the only decent costumes in that section. "Our love was true."

"Uh-huh. Come on, Ray's getting antsy about being back at the venue."

"You mean you want to get into your costume already."

"Fuck yeah I do! Probably save the wig until just before we go on though."

"Good call," Gerard says, still distracted. "That shit gets hot and itchy fast, I'll meet you out front in a minute."

Frank stops next to him, and Gerard stills when Frank looks up at his face, submitting to his scrutiny. "You good?" Frank asks, and Gerard impulsively grabs him into a hug, holding him hard for a moment before kissing the side of his head and pulling away.

"Yeah," Gerard says, brushing his bangs off his forehead and looking back at the men's section. "I am."

Frank knocks into his chest with his shoulder. "Okay. Five minutes, right? Ray really does want to get a move on."

Gerard nods back. He'll be fast.

Once they get back to the buses Gerard goes through his bags of clothes to find the wide belt that he knew he'd brought with him. He cinches it up tight over the tunic, the change to the line of the costume adding just enough of a suggestion of hips, of a figure unlike his own. He debates doing something to his hair and then realizes that no, Joan wouldn't do a thing. Joan just went out there and did what she had to, in secret.

Gerard can hold a secret to his heart, too.

He doesn't say anything to the guys, doesn't reference it in the set, but he knows who he is tonight. And when Frank plops down next to him on the couch in the lounge after the show, he finds out he's not the only one who got the message.

"The next time you want to make a statement, I recommend wearing a sign," Frank says, gesturing helpfully over his chest.

Gerard hums in response. He's pretty sure that Rosie the Riveter will read at Voodoo even without a label, but Frank may be right.

 _One_

They are definitely at the hardest stretch of the tour.

The last Jersey show was a week ago, the relief and ease of seeing family and old friends fading away steadily. It’s been a long summer, a long _year_ , and while most of it has been great, amazing even, they've hit the stage of the tour when the exhaustion threatens to overwhelm them and take away from who they are on stage every night.

The last three weeks have been particularly tough though, the residual anger and hurt leeching away their focus, the extra practices crammed into their schedule inadequate to fully repair the damage done.

Frank in particular looks restless and distracted after they leave Jersey. Virginia Beach is a hard show, and Mikey can see how Frank has to work to shake it off, to regroup for the last couple of weeks of shows. Mikey's not entirely sure where his Dracula costume comes from two nights later in Charlotte, whether he had tucked away with him in Jersey and was just waiting for a chance to use it, or whether he purchased it specifically for that. Either way it brought out the Frank of August again, the energy and the joy, and Mikey wants him back all the time. He's not willing to wait until they get to California, to their wives and children, for that to happen, either.

Ten days is too long at this stage.

Mikey knows that they've all been throwing themselves at the challenge, determined to not let the strain show, not let it ruin what they've accomplished this year. And for the most part, they've been successful. But he knows they can do more.

He talks to Lauren as they pass the border into Texas, and by the time they pull into the venue eight hours before sound check, he's got a car and a print out of google map directions to the nearest Halloween store.

The guys don't ask him any questions, take on face value his need to get out on the road for a little while, although Gerard hugs him a little longer than normal before he walks over to the car. He's wound a little tighter than Mikey likes--one more reason for his solo roadtrip.

When he comes back a little over two hours later, he's bursting with it, can't wait to show them what he's got planned for this evening.

"Okay, boys," he says after he finds his band on a bunch of couches. "Tonight we're going to do things a little differently."

He starts pulling costumes out of the bags before they have much of a chance to react, tossing the knight costume to Gerard first and then one for Toro. He looks at Frank next and tries to keep a smirk down when he tosses him the costume he found just for him.

Frank catches it and turns it around, face falling as he see it. "You have got to be kidding me, Mikeyway," he says, turning the costume outward so Ray and Gerard can see the "Pop Star" Black Parade getup.

"What, I thought that was a good look for you," Mikey says, reaching back into the bag. "But if you really hate it, I guess you can wear this instead." He tosses the Chucky costume at Frank and narrowly avoids hitting him in the head as Frank takes a picture of the Black Parade costume with his phone.

"Oh, sweet, now see this is a costume. Did you get me a wig, too?"

Mikey nods. "In this bag."

Gerard is staring up at him with that _look,_ that expression that Mikey can’t describe but is the entire reason why he never understands it when interviewers ask if it's hard to be around his brother all the time. They don't get it at all. He grins back at Gerard before looking over at Ray, who's holding his costume bag and looks to be in shock.

"Mikey. I can't wear this."

Frank glances over at Ray's lap and starts laughing. "Aw, come on man, I'd love to see a clown shred! It'll be awesome!"

"It'll be _terrifying,_ my hair's big enough without a fucking rainbow clown wig on top of it!" Ray protests, hair swinging in demonstration. "Come on, dude, you've got to have something else for me."

"You can be a pop star," Frank offers. He attempts to hand Ray the unwanted costume.

"I'm not so sure that size is going to fit him," Mikey says slowly, starting to laugh at the image of Ray in pants that end just below his knees.

"Oh fuck you all," Ray says between laughs. "Fuck it, I'm just gonna wear Frank's Dracula cape and that'll have to be good enough. Okay Mikeyway?"

His bandmates all look at him, eyes bright and faces relaxed in a way Mikey hasn't seen in way too long, and he smiles to himself. "That works for me."

 _Places_

The roar from the crowd is already deafening at the start of the intro. This place already has a great energy to it; good vibe and the anticipation backstage is high.

Gerard tugs his gloves on, smoothing them over, getting them just right. He’s already ridiculously hot in the costume, sweat running down his back and beading all along his arms. It’s just going to get worse under the lights.

He looks over at Frank in that wig the same color as his hair and grins involuntarily, glancing at Ray next and then finally Mikey, making eye contact with each in turn. He’s antsy, can’t wait to get out there, and about ten seconds before they normally walk on, he nods and walks out onto the stage.

“Let’s go,”  he says, to himself and to his band, and he raises his arms and greets the crowd.


End file.
